Creativity in the later years: optimistic prospects for achievement.
Despite the apparent decline in productivity in the final years of life, seven considerations suggest a far more favorable outlook: the actual magnitude of the age decrement; the role of extrinsic influences; the contingency on career age; the impact of individual differences in creative potential; the interdisciplinary variation in the age curves; the virtual absence of an age decrement on a contribution-for-contribution basis; and the resurgence of creativity in the form of the swan-song phenomenon.
Simonton
D K
DK
Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis 95616.
D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D003405:Creativity; D006801:Humans